The Photograph: A gripping love story with a heartbreaking twist

by Debbie Rix

  When the meal was over, and the family had played the ubiquitous Christmas games, Sophie retreated to bed, grateful to be alone and able to vent her misery.

  She woke on Boxing Day with a renewed sense of shame about her reaction to her sister-in-law’s good fortune. It wasn’t Victoria’s fault after all. After breakfast, she suggested a long walk with Victoria, to clear the air. She was determined to demonstrate that she was pleased for her brother and his wife.

  ‘I’m glad to get you on your own,’ she said to Victoria as they trudged across the wide ploughed fields that surrounded the village. ‘I wanted to apologise properly for my… frankly outrageous behaviour. It was unforgiveable. I am happy for you and Simon – honestly. It was just a bit of a shock.’

  ‘I know,’ said Victoria, taking her arm. The ground was frozen solid into brown rutted ripples that stretched away ahead of them.

  ‘It was my idea not to tell you,’ said Victoria. ‘I didn’t want to spoil Christmas for you. I thought it better to wait.’

  Sophie squeezed her arm appreciatively.

  ‘Although, ‘Victoria continued, ‘we had been trying for a couple of months; it wasn’t exactly instantaneous, you know.’

  She felt Sophie’s arm stiffen slightly.

  ‘God… I’m sorry,’ Victoria said quickly, ‘that was tactless. You’ve been trying for some time, haven’t you?’

  ‘Three years, nearly,’ said Sophie, gloomily.

  ‘You must hate me.’

  ‘I don’t!’ said Sophie, stopping abruptly in a deep rut filled with water. It sloshed around her wellington boots, seeping icily through a crack in the sole, soaking her sock. ‘I really don’t. I can’t pretend there isn’t a bit of jealousy – it’s a horrible thing, and I’m ashamed of it – but you understand that, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course. Of course I do.’

  They tramped on in silence. Rooks flew, squawking, into the windbreak of trees planted along the edge of the vast tractor-friendly field.

  ‘We’d love you to be godmother,’ said Victoria brightly.

  Sophie disengaged her arm and walked briskly ahead of her sister-in-law, muttering something about difficult walking conditions.

  Victoria ran after her, stumbling in the rutted ground, icy water slopping over the top of her ankle-high walking boots. ‘Sophie?’ she called out. ‘Have I upset you? I didn’t mean to…’

  Sophie swung round, her face contorted by tears.

  ‘I know you mean well, Vic, and I’m not unaware of the honour you do me… but can we leave that… for now?’

  Victoria put her arms out to Sophie, who stood in the biting wind, her shoulders hunched with restrained misery. ‘Oh Sophie, I’m sorry. Of course it’s all right to wait. Stupid of me to be so insensitive…’

  ‘No,’ said Sophie. She relaxed a little and hugged her sister-in-law. ‘I am really touched – honestly,’ she whispered into Victoria’s hair. ‘But… just let me get through these next few weeks. I want so desperately to be a mother.’

  In the middle of January, the process of IVF was due to begin. Sophie had been on the pill for four weeks and the day finally arrived when she would start to be injected with fertility drugs to increase egg production. She was due at the consultant’s office that morning to be given the first of her injections and Hamish, surprisingly, had agreed to come with her.

  She woke early, before dawn, and crept out of bed. She was filled with an almost childish excitement. This was the day she would really begin her journey to having a baby. It was happening at last.

  Peering through the curtains, the garden was bathed in a cloak of white frost, glistening in the early-morning moonlight. She was relieved that the heavy rain of the previous day had not turned to snow overnight. It would have been the ultimate torture to be unable to reach the hospital because the roads were blocked. She couldn’t bear the thought of anything getting in the way of the process that would change their lives.

  She climbed back into bed but lay restlessly in the half-light of the gathering dawn, watching Hamish sleep. They had made love the night before. It had been spontaneous and passionate – almost like the old days. How sad, she thought, that their love for one another just wasn’t enough to make a baby.

  She finally drifted off and was deeply asleep when the alarm went off at seven o’clock.

  Hamish rolled over and kissed her. ‘Morning, sleepy…’

  ‘Oh…’ she mumbled. ‘Morning. I’ve only just dropped back off. I was awake for hours.’

  ‘Oh… why? Fretting?’

  She nodded. ‘That… and feeling excited. A mix of things really.’

  He put his arms around her and pulled her towards him. She lay with her head against his chest, listening to the comforting rhythmic sound of his heart beating.

  ‘I understand,’ he said. ‘It’s a big day, but remember, darling, it’s just the start of the journey. We must stay calm and collected… It may work first time, but we need to prepare ourselves for disappointment.’

  She pulled away from him and lay propped up on her elbow. ‘Are you trying to be negative – to depress me?’

  ‘No… I’m trying to be realistic… to put it into perspective. One step at a time… OK?’

  At the clinic, the consultant talked them through the process once again.

  ‘Two weeks of fertility injections to increase egg production – you’ll need to do these daily at home. I hope you’ll be OK with that?’

  Sophie nodded, earnestly.

  The doctor looked at Hamish. ‘I suppose your husband can help you with that? He’s the ideal partner really, isn’t he?’

  Hamish smiled.

  ‘You’ll have to pop in for a few ultrasound checks to monitor how things are going and then, if all is well, there will be another injection to finalise “maturation”. Sorry – it’s a ghastly word, I know. We’ll then retrieve the eggs, mix them with Hamish’s sperm and Bob’s your uncle. If fertilisation occurs, five days later, we’ll then reimplant into the womb. Is that all clear?’

  The pair nodded. Hamish reached out and squeezed Sophie’s hand.

  ‘The drugs can make you feel a bit rough,’ the consultant continued, ‘not unlike pregnancy, I’m told. But they’re just something you have to get used to. No gain without pain…’

  The drugs, when Sophie started to take them, did indeed make her feel terrible. Her breasts became painful, and she grew two bra sizes within days – forcing her to buy new underwear. Hamish thought ‘the new arrivals’, as he irritatingly called them, were rather wonderful. But they were far too painful to touch. On top of that, Sophie had a raging thirst and peed constantly. Her stomach felt bloated as the month wore on and her jeans seemed suddenly a size too small. There were even mental side effects – she became forgetful and absent-minded, but that could have been due to the stress, she reasoned. The process would be so time-consuming that she had arranged to take a few weeks off work. She visited the clinic several times to check the development of the egg follicles.

  Finally, when they were declared ‘good to go’, she was injected with another drug – hCG – which would trigger their final maturation. The eggs would be retrieved under anaesthetic two days later.

  Her mother rang to ask if they needed her come down for this stage in the process.

  ‘I could come the night before the eggs are retrieved,’ she suggested to Hamish, ‘I know you’re so busy and she’ll need looking after.’

  ‘That’s very kind. I am busy, it’s true, but I ought to be with her… I want to be with her.’

  ‘Of course!’ said Angela. ‘But if I come down, I can cook you both dinner and make sure she’s comfortable. She’s bound to be a bit sore afterwards.’

  ‘Are you sure you can take the time off?’

  ‘Yes – my partner will cover for me. And we can get a locum if necessary.’

  On the morning of egg retrieval, Sophie was frantic with nerves.

  ‘You look a bit pale, darling,’
Angela said over breakfast, handing her a piece of toast.

  ‘I didn’t sleep well,’ said Sophie.

  The cat leapt onto her lap, poking his nose above the table, in search of a scrap of food. Sophie pushed him off and he skulked away to the Aga, where he lay staring at her, with a sense of righteous indignation.

  ‘Poor old Cat,’ said her mother, soothingly. ‘He didn’t mean anything by it – I haven’t fed him yet.’

  ‘He’s a filthy old beast,’ said Hamish, affectionately, tickling him under the chin. ‘But he just wants you to know how much he loves you…’

  ‘He just wanted to eat my breakfast,’ said Sophie grumpily, before she relented and knelt down by the cat. ‘I’m sorry, Cat,’ she said, stroking his long grey flank.

  ‘So,’ said Hamish, sitting down at the table, ‘you sure you’re going to be OK today? I can come along as well, you know…’

  ‘No,’ said Sophie, ‘Mum’s here. She’ll look after me. You get off to work – I’ll be fine.’

  He embraced his wife, pulling her towards him and kissed the top of her head; he made a thumbs up sign to her mother, who nodded discreetly.

  The procedure went well enough and, afterwards, when the anaesthetic had worn off, Angela drove Sophie home. She tucked her up on the sofa under a blanket and turned on the television.

  ‘You just lie here, darling. I’ll go and get dinner started.’

  ‘What are you making?’

  ‘Controlling as ever…’ said her mother, wryly. ‘I went into town, while you were having your op. I had a coffee and found a wonderful butcher where I bought some lamb. I thought I’d do my tagine. Is that OK?’

  ‘Delicious – thanks, Mum.’

  Hamish had texted throughout the day and arrived home just before seven o’clock with a large bunch of pink roses.

  ‘Oh… these are lovely,’ said Sophie. ‘What are they for? Guilty conscience?’

  ‘No!’ he said indignantly. ‘They’re just a way of saying well done. Was it painful?’

  ‘No, but it wasn’t exactly the most delightful day of my life either.’

  ‘Well, it’s over… I’ll go and ask your mother to put these in water, shall I?’

  ‘Yes… thank you.’ As he turned to go, she called out: ‘Hamish – it will be all right, won’t it?’

  Hamish, reluctant to make false promises, said, ‘You’ve done all you can. Just try to stay calm…onwards and upwards, darling.’

  A few days after the procedure, as Sophie and Hamish sat eating breakfast at the kitchen table, the phone rang. As she stood up to take the call, Sophie noted the number on the dial.

  ‘It’s the clinic,’ she whispered to Hamish. She felt sick with nerves.

  Hamish watched her face as she received the news. It went from white-faced anxiety to pure joy.

  ‘OK,’ she said to the voice on the other end. ‘So I should come back on Friday – yes? OK… see you then.’

  She threw her arms around Hamish’s neck as he sat at the table.

  ‘One of them has fertilised,’ she said. ‘We have a baby.’

  He leapt to his feet and hugged her. ‘That’s great… Really great news…’

  On the day of implantation, Sophie lay on the bed at the clinic while a catheter loaded with the embryo was inserted through her cervix.

  ‘Does it hurt?’ whispered Hamish into her ear. He sat next to her holding her hand as the couple watched the flimsy tube making its way into her uterus on the ultrasound screen beside them.

  ‘No…’ said Sophie. ‘Not at all.’

  The technician palpated the tube and a tiny cellular structure was released.

  Sophie grinned, and squeezed Hamish’s hand. ‘It’s going to be OK, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes…’ he replied.

  The next few days seemed endless. Without work to distract her, Sophie found it hard not to dwell on the progress of the tiny foetus lodged in her womb. She had been injecting herself with progesterone since the day the eggs were retrieved, in order to support the lining of her womb. She had never taken a medication so happily, or so readily. As she injected herself each evening, she said a prayer.

  ‘Keep my baby safe.’

  But the fear of losing the baby never left her. She avoided any rigorous exercise. Even digging the garden appeared dangerous. She lay on the sofa or pottered around the kitchen. She wandered up to the village shop to buy groceries – nervous even of driving into Cirencester and visiting the supermarket. She was relieved when, twelve days later, she was able to attend the clinic for her first blood test. This would determine if she was actually pregnant. Hamish agreed to come with her.

  ‘I’m sorry to drag you away from work again,’ Sophie had said over breakfast. ‘I just don’t feel confident driving for some reason.’

  ‘It’s fine, Sophie… I understand. I want to come anyway.’

  As the nurse took the blood sample, she explained the process.

  ‘You might be wondering why we take blood rather than checking your urine. It’s just more accurate. It detects the hormone secreted by the placenta after implantation. The more hormone in your body, the more likely the pregnancy is to “take”. We should have the results tomorrow.’

  The phone call giving her the results came just after lunch. Sophie was lying down in the sitting room, and as soon as she heard the phone ringing in the kitchen, she leapt up and rushed to answer it, dropping it in her excitement.

  ‘Hello… sorry, Sophie Mitchell here…’

  The news was the best she could have hoped for. Hamish was at work, but she rang his mobile and left a message.

  ‘Darling… darling, such wonderful news. It’s positive. Come home soon.’

  He rang her back half an hour later. ‘Oh Sophie, sweetheart… that’s wonderful. I’ll be back after six…’

  ‘It will be all right, won’t it?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Now stop worrying – first hurdle over… see you later.’

  She rang her mother and managed to speak to her between patients.

  ‘Sophie – that’s fantastic,’ said her mother. ‘But don’t get your hopes up too much.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’ asked Sophie.

  ‘Because… sometimes things don’t quite work out…’ her mother said, regretting ever having brought doubt into the situation. ‘But I’m sure it will be fine.’

  Sophie was tortured by her mother’s reaction and played her words over and over in her mind. She was due to have another blood test a couple of weeks later and again two weeks after that, until the end of the first trimester, or until a foetal heartbeat could be heard. She spent the afternoon googling information about the developing foetus… and discovered that the heartbeat could be audible, as early as six or seven weeks. Determined to remain positive, she pushed any doubts to one side. She was pregnant at last; it was a miracle.

  The following two weeks went by achingly slowly. Each night as Sophie climbed into bed, she mentally ticked another day off. ‘Just eleven days to go.’ ‘Ten days.’ ‘Nine days… until the next test. Hang in there, baby,’ she told her child. The second blood test would provide the proof, the definitive evidence – to her mother, to Hamish, to herself – that the baby was all right. That her womb was nourishing it, feeding it. That she could do this.

  The second blood test was also positive. Sophie’s sense of achievement was mixed with relief. She was one month pregnant. In just two weeks’ time, she might be able to hear the heartbeat and have real visceral proof that her baby was there, inside her. In just eight months she could be holding her child in her arms. This baby for whom she had yearned for so long; had loved before it was even created. It was as if her life had been leading up to this moment. And she would love this child – whether a boy or a girl, whether dark-haired or blond, clever or stupid… she would take anything. She would love it forever. She would kill for it. She would love it more than any child had ever been loved before.

  A few days later she
woke early.

  ‘Hamish, Hamish…’ she said, shaking him awake, ‘something’s wrong.’

  ‘What…’ he murmured.

  ‘I’m not sure… I can’t explain it… I just feel… empty.’

  He was instantly alert, the doctor on duty. He sat up in bed.

  ‘Do you have any pain?’

  ‘A little… here.’ She pointed to her lower abdomen.

  ‘It might be nothing,’ he said calmly, ‘it could just be wind, or bloating, don’t panic. Do you want some tea?’

  He returned a few minutes later with a tray and two cups of tea. He opened the curtains. The dawn had come and gone, and the sun was now twinkling low in the sky at the end of their bed.

  ‘Lovely day,’ he said as positively as he could. ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘About the same…’

  ‘OK – well just stay in bed and keep calm. I’ll cancel my list and give the clinic a call. I’ll see if they can fit you in for another test. I can take you in.’

  ‘Who can you find to cover for you at the last minute?’ she asked. ‘I’ll drive myself. I’ll be fine.’

  ‘No, Sophie. John or someone will cover. He had a day off today, anyway. He was only going to play golf. I’ll call him.’

  The clinic offered them an appointment at two o’clock, and Hamish suggested they spend the morning in the garden. The cat joined them, rolling around in the early spring sunshine, rubbing his back against the rough flagstones. The hens clucked companionably around their feet, scratching in the dirt for worms and insects.

  ‘We should maybe talk to Mick about getting a few more chicks – what do you say?’ asked Hamish.

  ‘What?’ asked Sophie distractedly.

  ‘More rare breeds. These old girls are fine as egg layers, but I was thinking of a few glamorous ones… Perhaps some Old English game hens – they’re really beautiful.’